“I would call him kind of like a second founder in some ways,” said Mount Carmel president, Mr. Brendan Conroy.
On February 24, 2025, one of the most dedicated members of the Mount Carmel community sadly passed away. Father David Dillon, O. Carm. ’57 has had one of the biggest impacts among any Carmel grad on the school.
From being named Man Of the Century to establishing the bus system students use today, he did it all. He worked to improve MC and was even on the Board of Directors until just a year before his death. It would not be unfair to say that Mount Carmel would not be Mount Carmel without Fr. Dillon.
He was second generation Irish with his grandparents being immigrants from Ireland. He came to MC from Our Lady of Peace on 79th and Jeffery Ave. Also, he had an older brother that went to St. Ignatius.
“He broke tradition and came here to Mount Carmel,” said Mr. Andy Dimas, Director of Development at MC.
While Fr. Dillon was a student here he was on Student Council and played handball and basketball. He was very loved by the Class of 1957.
“They always made it a point to get together for a birthday lunch for him in January every year,” said Mr. Conroy. “That was kind of fun, and I was in on a load of those lunches which was great.”
The Class of ’57 has been one of the most involved graduating classes at MC.
“That’s always been a very active class,” said Fr. Jim Lewis, O. Carm. ’72 “Because of him. They took great pride in him being principal and having been so active. I’m sure at his funeral and the inevitable memorial mass we have here there will be many people from that class.”
After graduating he went on to become a Carmelite priest and was ordained in the late 1960s and was Assistant Principal at MC by 1972. He then served as principal for five years where he contributed tremendously to the school by establishing the development department.
“He certainly had the foresight to see that if Mount Carmel was going to remain viable for families and affordable, you’re going to have to count on more than just collecting tuition,” said Mr. Conroy. “You are going to have to fundraise as well as collect tuition. He had pretty good foresight on that and kind of thought through ok what do we need to do here then so he started to set up an idea of a development office to help fundraise to support the school.”
He also taught at MC for several years and had a reputation for being a stern but good teacher.
“He was tough, but he was fair,” said Mr. Dimas. “When he came down on you, you looked more like, ‘Okay, I need to shape up’ versus ‘I’m getting picked on.’ It wasn’t like that. It was more like if he actually comes down on you, it’s on you to kind of look in the mirror.”
He even earned the nickname “Smiling Dave” from several of his former students.
“There’s a couple of ways to interpret that,” said Mr. Conroy. “Smiling Dave could be the guy who was smiling at you when he was giving you discipline. Also, according to some who wrote to me after he died, he was always smiling because he loved his work. He loved doing what he did here at Mount Carmel and I learned that from him in the last four years.”
What he is most known for though is his creation of the bus system we use today.
“He could see in the 1970s that Catholic education was facing challenges,” said Conroy. “Instead of waiting for students to come to Mount Carmel, he was the brains behind putting bus routes together to go and get the kids and bring them to Mount Carmel.”
This was a very troubling time for the school. The buses brought up the enrollment numbers which had taken a sharp dip.
“The busing you could say really saved the school,” said Fr. Jim. “When I was a senior it was about 920 [students enrolled]. By the time I came back there was a real drop, but it came back really quickly largely through his efforts.”
Due to the buses a far wider range of people could have the chance to attend MC.
“He was probably ahead of his time for most Catholic high schools in getting that stuff done. There was an independent bus line that he contracted with so we could go out to places like South Holland and really bring people in here. We now say with great pride we have x number of zip codes that we draw from, and that’s true. That certainly started back in his day. By the eighties when I was ordained and was a teacher here he was still with the school and doing development work.”
Making sure that he could get as many people as possible the chance to attend MC was important to Fr. Dillon.
“For him it wasn’t just about making sure we had kids coming,” said Mr. Conroy. “It was about making sure that young men in Chicago had an opportunity for a Carmelite education. If there’s one thing I learned from him in our long car rides and lunches and things like that. It was how much he believed in the mission of what this place does for young men. When you strip it down to the essence of who he was, that’s what it got to.”
He eventually moved away from his direct involvement at MC and became pastor at St. Matthew’s Parish out in Glendale Heights.
“They loved him out there,” said Fr. Jim. “That says a lot because parishioners, if you’re not a good pastor, they’re not going to make up for that.”
In 2000 there was a celebration of the 100th year anniversary of Mount Carmel and Fr. Dillon was named Man of the Century.
“He was such an important figure in Mount Carmel’s history,” said Mr. Conroy. “One of the things we have discovered is that it was his classmates who definitely loved him deeply, but also the respect and love that his students and colleagues had for him in all the years that he worked here.”
Even in his retirement he still was an avid supporter of MC and was on the Board of Directors until early this year. He even made sure to attend as many sports games and events as he could.
“In his heart and in his mind he’s still one hundred percent Mount Carmel wants to go in the stands,” said Mr. Dimas. “We were worried for his safety so we made sure we sat by him, helped him get down, up and out of the stands and all that.”
Several alumni would rotate on driving out to the St. Patrick’s retirement home in Naperville to go and get him to make sure he could make it to games and events.
When he passed, the feedback from the MC community was enormous.
“It was amazing,” said Mr. Conroy. “I got dozens and dozens of emails back from people saying what he meant to them and how important of a person he was to them as a carmelite priest, as a friend, as an educator, as a leader, and in so many different ways he was really an extraordinary guy.”
Fr. Dillon was a true Man of Camel who embodied the values of Mount Carmel more than anyone else. He was truly one of a kind.
“He was thoroughly completely devoted to Mount Carmel and there’s no exaggerating that,” said Fr. Jim. “It always sounds very nice, but there’s no one you could think of who’s more devoted to Mount Carmel.”
